@joesteel.bsky.social
Java developer and enthusiast. Late to the game, but > 10 years in. Enthusiastic cook, with some professional exp, occasional musician. He/Him
Reposted
Why I switched from #Markdown to #Asciidoc for #technicalwriting.
Markdown is good, but Asciidoc is much more! It natively handles file includes, admonitions, spans in tables, and even diagrams—perfect for books, docs, and workshops.
Time to level up!
Markdown is good, but Asciidoc is much more! It natively handles file includes, admonitions, spans in tables, and even diagrams—perfect for books, docs, and workshops.
Time to level up!
AsciiDoc over Markdown
I taught myself HTML a long time ago, on a software called HotDog (Pro?). There wasn’t such a thing as WYSIWYG capabilities at the time. However, HotDog had an amazing feature: the toolbar had all HTM...
blog.frankel.ch
October 26, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Why I switched from #Markdown to #Asciidoc for #technicalwriting.
Markdown is good, but Asciidoc is much more! It natively handles file includes, admonitions, spans in tables, and even diagrams—perfect for books, docs, and workshops.
Time to level up!
Markdown is good, but Asciidoc is much more! It natively handles file includes, admonitions, spans in tables, and even diagrams—perfect for books, docs, and workshops.
Time to level up!
Reposted
My latest blog: Go Primitive in Java, or Go in a Box
I've programmed in Java for half of my life. I stopped waiting for language features when I knew lambdas would arrive. We got to work and solved collections problems together in OSS.
No regrets, just thanks. 🙏
donraab.medium.com/go-primitive...
I've programmed in Java for half of my life. I stopped waiting for language features when I knew lambdas would arrive. We got to work and solved collections problems together in OSS.
No regrets, just thanks. 🙏
donraab.medium.com/go-primitive...
Go Primitive in Java, or Go in a Box
We can have our eight Java primitives and travel light in collections too.
donraab.medium.com
October 25, 2025 at 9:03 PM
My latest blog: Go Primitive in Java, or Go in a Box
I've programmed in Java for half of my life. I stopped waiting for language features when I knew lambdas would arrive. We got to work and solved collections problems together in OSS.
No regrets, just thanks. 🙏
donraab.medium.com/go-primitive...
I've programmed in Java for half of my life. I stopped waiting for language features when I knew lambdas would arrive. We got to work and solved collections problems together in OSS.
No regrets, just thanks. 🙏
donraab.medium.com/go-primitive...
Reposted
My book, "Eclipse Collections Categorically", is available on Kindle Unlimited (KU) again. It is available for free to KU subscribers from today through January 16, 2026.
Read the review from @waynebeaton.bsky.social to learn about what is in the book. 👇
blog.waynebeaton.ca/posts/ecc/re...
Read the review from @waynebeaton.bsky.social to learn about what is in the book. 👇
blog.waynebeaton.ca/posts/ecc/re...
Eclipse Collections Categorically: Level up your programming game | Wayne Beaton
Eclipse Collections Categorically is the most comprehensive guide to the Eclipse Collections framework that could possibly exist. But this is no mere reference guide. This book tells a story.
blog.waynebeaton.ca
October 20, 2025 at 4:44 AM
My book, "Eclipse Collections Categorically", is available on Kindle Unlimited (KU) again. It is available for free to KU subscribers from today through January 16, 2026.
Read the review from @waynebeaton.bsky.social to learn about what is in the book. 👇
blog.waynebeaton.ca/posts/ecc/re...
Read the review from @waynebeaton.bsky.social to learn about what is in the book. 👇
blog.waynebeaton.ca/posts/ecc/re...
Reposted
This remains the funniest way to hear about an internet outage, though.
October 20, 2025 at 8:41 AM
This remains the funniest way to hear about an internet outage, though.
Hedgehog sighting! Love these little creatures. The only thing that makes it more wholesome is tapping on the window for my wife to come out and seeing how happy she is.
October 18, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Hedgehog sighting! Love these little creatures. The only thing that makes it more wholesome is tapping on the window for my wife to come out and seeing how happy she is.
Reposted
I've been using RandomAccessSpliterator for years in #Java without realizing it. I wrote about this default spliterator years ago. I wrote about it again after learning it is used by immutable Lists created by List.of() and Stream.toList(). Deja vu all over again.
donraab.medium.com/spliterating...
donraab.medium.com/spliterating...
Spliterating Hairs Results in Spliterating Deja Vu
How a “Random” question led me down a Java Spliterator rabbit hole.
donraab.medium.com
October 18, 2025 at 5:01 PM
I've been using RandomAccessSpliterator for years in #Java without realizing it. I wrote about this default spliterator years ago. I wrote about it again after learning it is used by immutable Lists created by List.of() and Stream.toList(). Deja vu all over again.
donraab.medium.com/spliterating...
donraab.medium.com/spliterating...
Reposted
My latest blog: Spliterating Hairs Results in Spliterating Deja Vu
The story of a four day accidental rabbit hole self-extraction. I've fallen down this hole before. Who knows, maybe the blog will prove useful and lead to a small change in the #Java ListN class. 🤷♂️
donraab.medium.com/spliterating...
The story of a four day accidental rabbit hole self-extraction. I've fallen down this hole before. Who knows, maybe the blog will prove useful and lead to a small change in the #Java ListN class. 🤷♂️
donraab.medium.com/spliterating...
Spliterating Hairs Results in Spliterating Deja Vu
How a “Random” question led me down a Java Spliterator rabbit hole.
donraab.medium.com
October 15, 2025 at 6:25 PM
My latest blog: Spliterating Hairs Results in Spliterating Deja Vu
The story of a four day accidental rabbit hole self-extraction. I've fallen down this hole before. Who knows, maybe the blog will prove useful and lead to a small change in the #Java ListN class. 🤷♂️
donraab.medium.com/spliterating...
The story of a four day accidental rabbit hole self-extraction. I've fallen down this hole before. Who knows, maybe the blog will prove useful and lead to a small change in the #Java ListN class. 🤷♂️
donraab.medium.com/spliterating...
Reposted
I was watching a tutorial today (I do this a lot) and I have some advice for you:
Watch your screen. If there are red squiggles underneath some of your lines of code, don't ignore those. Fix it. Even if they're wrong, you want your editor to be able to spot real problems.
Same with grey underlines
Watch your screen. If there are red squiggles underneath some of your lines of code, don't ignore those. Fix it. Even if they're wrong, you want your editor to be able to spot real problems.
Same with grey underlines
October 14, 2025 at 5:51 PM
I was watching a tutorial today (I do this a lot) and I have some advice for you:
Watch your screen. If there are red squiggles underneath some of your lines of code, don't ignore those. Fix it. Even if they're wrong, you want your editor to be able to spot real problems.
Same with grey underlines
Watch your screen. If there are red squiggles underneath some of your lines of code, don't ignore those. Fix it. Even if they're wrong, you want your editor to be able to spot real problems.
Same with grey underlines
Reposted
Reposted
There's one week left to read "Eclipse Collections Categorically" on Kindle Unlimited for free. Read the authors inside guide to reading first to find out how to make the most out of reading the book with limited time.
donraab.medium.com/the-authors-...
donraab.medium.com/the-authors-...
The Author’s Inside Guide to Reading Eclipse Collections Categorically
TL;DR — Read Chapters 1, 2, 3. Jump to 11. Skim 4–10. Dive in as desired.
donraab.medium.com
October 5, 2025 at 7:18 PM
There's one week left to read "Eclipse Collections Categorically" on Kindle Unlimited for free. Read the authors inside guide to reading first to find out how to make the most out of reading the book with limited time.
donraab.medium.com/the-authors-...
donraab.medium.com/the-authors-...
Gem of a track. youtu.be/oRkRwL0vjOg?...
JINJER - Teacher, Teacher! (Official Video) | Napalm Records
YouTube video by Napalm Records
youtu.be
October 4, 2025 at 11:39 PM
Gem of a track. youtu.be/oRkRwL0vjOg?...
Reposted
A project template is halfway round the world while a design principle is putting its boots on.
October 4, 2025 at 9:26 PM
A project template is halfway round the world while a design principle is putting its boots on.
I've been working a bit with just pure Java and a few trusty libs for the last couple of days, and it's a real breath of fresh air. No DI frameworks to worry about, just some good old TDD programming with JUnit, Eclipse Collections, Hikari, the postgres driver, and the AWS client. I've missed this.
October 4, 2025 at 7:47 PM
I've been working a bit with just pure Java and a few trusty libs for the last couple of days, and it's a real breath of fresh air. No DI frameworks to worry about, just some good old TDD programming with JUnit, Eclipse Collections, Hikari, the postgres driver, and the AWS client. I've missed this.
Reposted
100% agreed. Whenever I touch npm or pip, I see why Maven (and Gradle) and the Java ecosystem are good the way they are.
We're even getting trusted checksums in Maven 4! Like a "proper" package-lock...
We're even getting trusted checksums in Maven 4! Like a "proper" package-lock...
October 4, 2025 at 7:12 PM
100% agreed. Whenever I touch npm or pip, I see why Maven (and Gradle) and the Java ecosystem are good the way they are.
We're even getting trusted checksums in Maven 4! Like a "proper" package-lock...
We're even getting trusted checksums in Maven 4! Like a "proper" package-lock...
I'm not sure how this is comfortable, but oh well.
October 4, 2025 at 6:45 PM
I'm not sure how this is comfortable, but oh well.
Reposted
4 factors that are reasonably good predictors of which code is likely to break:
1. Complexity (more to go wrong)
2. Coupling (greater risk of breaking changes)
3. Change (the more often code changes, the great the risk)
4. Test Assurance - how thoroughly and how often it's being tested)
(1/3)
1. Complexity (more to go wrong)
2. Coupling (greater risk of breaking changes)
3. Change (the more often code changes, the great the risk)
4. Test Assurance - how thoroughly and how often it's being tested)
(1/3)
October 4, 2025 at 8:54 AM
4 factors that are reasonably good predictors of which code is likely to break:
1. Complexity (more to go wrong)
2. Coupling (greater risk of breaking changes)
3. Change (the more often code changes, the great the risk)
4. Test Assurance - how thoroughly and how often it's being tested)
(1/3)
1. Complexity (more to go wrong)
2. Coupling (greater risk of breaking changes)
3. Change (the more often code changes, the great the risk)
4. Test Assurance - how thoroughly and how often it's being tested)
(1/3)
Reposted
Reposted
Join @zakhav.bsky.social and myself tomorrow at 10:45am in Salon FGH to learn why and how we've written #Java code with #EclipseCollections for the past 21 years. I brought a couple paperback copies of "Eclipse Collections Categorically" to give away at the end of our session. Hope to see u there! 🙏
Using JDK Collections? Lost in a maze of factories? Drowning in streams? Wishing for a better way? Then gather your Gatherers, collect your Collectors and attend "Refactoring to Eclipse Collections" talk at @dev2next.bsky.social to level up your #Java collections game with me and @zakhav.bsky.social
September 29, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Join @zakhav.bsky.social and myself tomorrow at 10:45am in Salon FGH to learn why and how we've written #Java code with #EclipseCollections for the past 21 years. I brought a couple paperback copies of "Eclipse Collections Categorically" to give away at the end of our session. Hope to see u there! 🙏
Oh, great. After a premature end to a holiday, I've now got what seems to look like a snapped coil spring (and possibly the adjoining suspension and tires) to contend with.
September 24, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Oh, great. After a premature end to a holiday, I've now got what seems to look like a snapped coil spring (and possibly the adjoining suspension and tires) to contend with.
Interesting conversation with a chat bot earlier (paraphrased to remove specifics): "Are you X or Y?" [Proceeds to provide "yes" and "no" as the only 2 acceptable answers]. A few moments later when I insisted on speaking to somebody, it asked if I was sure and proclaimed "I'm a smart bot, I promise"
September 23, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Interesting conversation with a chat bot earlier (paraphrased to remove specifics): "Are you X or Y?" [Proceeds to provide "yes" and "no" as the only 2 acceptable answers]. A few moments later when I insisted on speaking to somebody, it asked if I was sure and proclaimed "I'm a smart bot, I promise"
Reposted
Today I offer a reminder of the word ‘forswunk’ (13th century): exhausted from too much work. To be ‘foreswunk’ (my own version) is to be exhausted before you even begin.
September 19, 2025 at 7:09 AM
Today I offer a reminder of the word ‘forswunk’ (13th century): exhausted from too much work. To be ‘foreswunk’ (my own version) is to be exhausted before you even begin.
Reposted
To find out why a former Smalltalk developer open sourced and worked for 21 years on a collections framework for #Java, just read the Preface. Read the entire book to see what 21 years of OSS community effort can produce. Content up thru Chapter 1 is FREE online. 👇
read.amazon.com/sample/B0FFM...
read.amazon.com/sample/B0FFM...
Read a sample: “Eclipse Collections Categorically: Level up your programming game”
Donald Raab
read.amazon.com
September 14, 2025 at 4:49 AM
To find out why a former Smalltalk developer open sourced and worked for 21 years on a collections framework for #Java, just read the Preface. Read the entire book to see what 21 years of OSS community effort can produce. Content up thru Chapter 1 is FREE online. 👇
read.amazon.com/sample/B0FFM...
read.amazon.com/sample/B0FFM...
Yep.
I don’t feel rested, I need a break...
*takes a break but spends the whole time thinking about how I don’t deserve a break & how I’ll have more work later because I took this stupid break arggghhh-
break over.
I don’t feel rested... 🤔
(don’t let guilt sabotage your time off)
*takes a break but spends the whole time thinking about how I don’t deserve a break & how I’ll have more work later because I took this stupid break arggghhh-
break over.
I don’t feel rested... 🤔
(don’t let guilt sabotage your time off)
September 11, 2025 at 6:51 PM
Yep.